‘I have no English friends’: some observations on the practice of action learning with international business students

This account reports on some experiences of facilitating action learning with international business students. Interest in international student learning and the international student experience is significant and increasing with a considerable range of literature on the subject. Some of this literature is concerned with the perceived ‘problems’ or ‘deficits’ which international learners are said to bring to the UK university experience. Elsewhere the benefits which international students bring to the learning process are more positively highlighted. This paper describes some of the experiences derived from implementing action learning with a number of sets of international postgraduate business and management students in an HE business school setting. Specifically, it considers how educational, learning and cultural differences, expectations and assumptions influence the student experience, and how collaborative learning can be developed.     

Bourdieu’s habitus and field: implications on the practice and theory of critical action learning

This paper considers the logic of practice of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in relation to critical action learning: in particular habitus which is co-created with field and the interplay amongst the two in the form of misrecognition and risk. We draw on interviews with participants who have experienced action learning as part of an NHS leadership programme. We argue that Bourdieu provides helpful ways of understanding and explaining the complex processes of social interactions which are centre stage in action learning – especially the ‘social friction’ through which action learners gain new insights and new prompts to action in their workplace from learning set members. These insights can support action learning practitioners keen to explore their own practice.     

Politicising the ‘personal’: the resistant potential of creative pedagogies in teaching and learning ‘sensitive’ issues

Drawing upon student narratives gleaned through qualitative interviews, this paper argues that teaching and learning ‘sensitive’ issues surrounding gender and sexualities through ‘creative’ pedagogies can be a mode of resistance against the reproduction of problematic social discourses, and to the negative impacts of neoliberalism on student’s learning within higher education. The findings point to the importance of speaking about sensitive issues; the value of creative approaches for enhancing learning; and that together these can enable students to articulate an agenda for social change. Students saw the ‘personal as political’ – of sharing personal journeys around sensitive issues as important. They further spoke of ‘apathy’ in an neoliberal era of student ‘consumers’ and how this could curtail ‘creative’ teaching and jeopardise learning. Overall, it is argued that creative approaches to teaching and learning sensitive issues can invoke a resistant potentiality which exposes the ‘hidden injuries’ (Gill, 2010) of the neoliberal university.     

Science education reform in Confucian learning cultures: teachers’ perspectives on policy and practice in Taiwan

This empirical study investigates secondary science teachers’ perspectives on science education reform in Taiwan and reflects how these teachers have been negotiating constructivist and learner-centered pedagogical approaches in contemporary science education. It also explores the challenges that teachers encounter while shifting their pedagogical focus from traditional approaches to teaching science to an active engagement in students’ learning. Multiple sources of qualitative data were obtained, including individual interviews with science teachers and teachers’ reflective journals about Confucianism in relation to their educational philosophies. Thematic analysis and constant comparative method were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that Confucian traditions play a significant role in shaping educational practices in Taiwan and profoundly influence teachers’ epistemological beliefs and their actual classroom practice. Indeed, science teachers’ perspectives on Confucian learning traditions played a key role in supporting or obstructing their pedagogical commitments to inquiry-based and learner-centered approaches. This study draws on the literature concerning teachers’ professional struggles and identity construction during educational reform. Specifically, we explore the ways in which teachers respond to educational changes and negotiate their professional identities. We employed various theories of identity construction to understand teachers’ struggles and challenges while wrestling with competing traditional and reform-based pedagogical approaches. Attending to these struggles and the ways in which they inform the development of a teacher’s professional identity is vital for sustaining current and future educational reform in Taiwan as well as in other Eastern cultures. These findings have important implications for teachers’ professional development programs in East Asian cultures.     

Pedagogical Innovation in Canadian higher education: Professors’ perspectives on its effects on teaching and learning

To rise to the challenge of today’s university, professors make use of many types of pedagogical innovation. This paper examines professors’ perceptions of the impact arising from innovative teaching through a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews conducted with assistant, associate and full professors of a Canadian university. Grounded theory analysis shows that pedagogical innovations support learning, professionalisation and graduation, and remote access to courses for students, and alters their behaviours and attitudes. Moreover, pedagogical innovations reinvent teaching practices and satisfy professors, while the associated academic institution can take pride in the achievement. Paradoxically, the outcomes of this study highlight the recognition granted to pedagogical innovators, in contrast to innovative teaching, which remains denigrated. This paper discusses the implications of the findings for educational practice and provides recommendations as well as avenues for further research.     

Re/assembling ‘innovative’ learning environments: Affective practice and its politics

Abstract

In this article, we argue that the interest being taken by governments in establishing innovative learning environments (ILEs) in schools relies on a conception of space as a largely neutral arena. In consequence, relations of space and power inherent in the infrastructural shift to ILEs tend to drop from view. Adopting an assemblage approach to investigating learning environments, and exploring ILEs as they are playing out in Australian schools, we strive to surface what drops from view. Taking ILEs to be sociomaterial assemblages, we work with empirical material and trace how they assemble and reassemble. The account is less concerned with what works in ILEs; rather, its focus is on their ‘workings’ as assemblages of relations and most particularly, affective relations. Thus, we explore two affective encounters involving school leaders, teachers and students showing the ways in which they position and are positioned within ILEs. The argument is made that the assemblage approach which is non-deterministic and relational affords new ways of understanding what ILEs are and how they work and who they work for. And, that attending to affective practice brings into view the micropolitics through which infrastructural shifts and infrastructural policy-making are made.     

A double win: practice and participation in an action learning facilitators’ set

This account of practice shares insights from past and present members of a self-facilitating action learning set, where each of the members is an action learning facilitator. Motivations for joining the set encompassed the opportunity to ‘practice what you preach’ by being a set member as well as a facilitator, the potential to refine and develop facilitation practices in a safe environment and space for personal development.     

Reflections on outdoor education and English ‘Indigenous Organic Fascism’ in the 1930s

The 1930s in England saw the emergence of what has been called an ‘Indigenous Organic Fascism’. This ideology was based on deeply articulated concerns for both the natural environment and a perceived threat to a cultural and spiritual connection to the land. This article reviews these perspectives and explores the ideas of English Fascism for a rural and thereby cultural revival. The article reviews how such environmental concerns became practically expressed in a range of enterprises in outdoor engagement with young people in an attempt to counter the desultory effects of capitalism and urbanisation. Some initiatives were based on summer camps with regular organised activities; others sought to promote deeper, spiritual connections to the natural environment. It is suggested that how such an intolerant and elitist ideology came to see such deep connections to the environment as central to their articulation may be of interest to contemporary practice in outdoor learning and that critical reflection, review and interrogation of some of the terms we use is a way of safeguarding unintentional misinterpretation in uncertain times.     

Selecting schools for closure: theory and practice in ‘rational’ planning

For more than a decade, LEAs have been under pressure to close schools. During this period the scale of contraction in school provision has been substantial but has nevertheless lagged behind DES expectations. This paper is concerned with the selection of schools for closure or amalgamation and examines in detail the procedures adopted and the proposals advanced in one LEA. While existing evidence suggests that the selection of schools for closure has generally been less than rational, the case selected is an example of what has been officially described as ‘strategic planning’ and ‘good practice’. Policy statements, criteria for selecting schools, and the characteristics of schools earmarked for closure are compared to assess the relationship between theory and practice. In practice, the criteria cited by the LEA were generally not capable of strict application. In addition, unstated criteria, notably school size, appear to have been significant. Thus, the LEA's proposals did not correspond directly to its own stated policy. Further, the extent to which the procedure adopted by the LEA conformed to notions of rational planning was limited. Current legislation is likely to reduce still further the ability of LEAs to produce rational schemes of contraction.     

Education,democracy and social change: Venezuela’s education missions in theory and practice

The ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ in Venezuela is conceptualised as a pedagogical project that aims to develop ‘twenty-first century Socialism’ through state-grassroots collaboration in the reorganisation of political space in order to develop participatory, democratic institutions and processes. The cornerstones of this project to deepen and expand democracy in and through education are the adult Education Missions, set up in parallel to existing educational structures, and with an explicit focus on socio-political education and community projects aimed at promoting a new hegemony based on active grassroots citizenship. While the struggle to extend democracy in and through education is not unique to Venezuela, the conceptualisation of democracy as protagonist and participatory, and the explicit links made between education and democratic social change within the broader framework of twenty-first century socialism, makes Venezuela a dynamic site to revisit and reinvigorate classical debates as to the role of education in promoting democratic social change. Based on 15 months of empirical research, this paper examines the extent to which adult education in Venezuela is contributing to the development of a counter-hegemonic movement to build socialism for the twenty-first century.     

Marxist state theory and state autonomy theory: the case of ‘race’ education in initial teacher education

Abstract

In recent times, there have been a number of critiques of Marxist and neo‐Marxist analyses of the state and education policy. These have drawn on postmodernist, ‘quasi‐postmodernist’ and state autonomy perspectives. While the postmodernist and ‘quasi‐postmodernist’ approaches have attracted critical response, to date, the state autonomy perspective has, to our knowledge, gone unchallenged. To address this theoretical lacuna, this paper analyses one writer's attempt, via an historical case study, to uphold state autonomy theory by detailing the ongoing relationship between one quasi‐state agency and the practice of ‘race’ education in initial teacher education. We argue that there are serious conceptual weaknesses in this latest attempt to apply state autonomy theory to educational policy analysis. The arguments in the case study under consideration are seriously compromised by a basically flawed hypothesis, a misrepresentation of contemporary (neo‐) Marxist education policy analysis and by a failure to look at ‘the big picture’.     

Reflections on policy and practice of inclusive education in pre‐primary schools in Cyprus

In July 1999 the House of Parliament in Cyprus passed the Education Act for Children with Special Needs, according to which all children have the right to be educated in their neighbouring regular school together with their age‐mates. An important component of this law is that it introduces, for the first time, inclusive education into pre‐primary education. A child can be considered as having special needs only when he/she has attained the age of 3 years or older. The purpose of this paper is to examine how the policy of inclusive education is implemented in pre‐primary schools in ­Cyprus, to investigate whether some children are still marginalized (after the implementation of the new law) and, if they are, to identify factors influencing marginalization or acting as a barrier to inclusion. We also briefly present the results from a study we conducted that supports the discussion of the issues raised in this paper.     

China’s radio and TV universities: reflections on theory and practice of open and distance learning

Distance education and open learning are western innovations, representing the educational concepts, cultures and societies of western countries. The introduction of distance education and the adoption of open learning in China’s radio and TV universities are by no means an indication that they will and can be copied wholesale. Open and distance learning has to be developed in accordance with the specific political, social, cultural and economic environments in the Chinese context. Thus, it represents an ever‐changing and evolving process in which theory and practice interact with each other.     

Criticality and connoisseurship in arts education: pedagogy,practice and ‘Pinterest©’

ABSTRACT

In time-poor and pressured teaching environments, some classroom teachers look for immediate and simple solutions to resourcing their arts teaching. Online platforms, such as Pinterest, seem to offer ready-made answers for these teachers, however, a lack of criticality can underscore the unexamined ‘advantages’ of such accessible resources. Accessibility and lack of confidence for time poor teachers are two key issues in understanding why teachers prefer online platforms for the sourcing of arts teaching resources rather than curriculum documents written for them by ‘curriculum experts’. Critically competent curriculum decisions require informed knowing about value and how the decision impacts on practice and student learning and in this way criticality and connoisseurship are important capabilities that constantly need to be strengthened in a digitally mediated world. Combined in an arts context and drawing on interviews with 16 classroom teachers, criticality and connoisseurship are two key concepts used to highlight the systemic issues of context, value and pedagogy that impact on teacher’s practice. Suggestions for increasing teachers’ criticality and connoisseurship are explored as important pathways for improving arts learning for young people.     

Theorising policy and practice in refugee education: Conceptualising ‘safety’, ‘belonging’, ‘success’ and ‘participatory parity’ in England and Sweden

Across the world, children are forced to leave their homes for far-flung destinations. This global phenomenon has particular impact in Europe, where there are now more child refugees than since World War II. Education plays an important role for children with extraordinary experiences seeking to build meaningful lives in their new context. This article offers a new theoretical approach to underpin reforms to educational policy and practice for refugees in schools in resettlement contexts in Europe. The new conceptual framing is grounded in empirical work in England and Sweden, and brings two theories together: ‘participatory parity’ (Fraser) and ‘resumption of an ordinary life’ (Kohli). Kohli’s concepts of ‘safety’, ‘belonging’ and ‘success’ have resonance with practitioners from Sweden and England as they work to meet the needs of their new arrivals. Fraser’s conceptual lenses of redistribution, recognition and representation highlight the barriers to achieving the right to inclusive education for refugee children in each context. The interdependence of both theories shapes a new framework. The theoretical understandings offered in this article have been developed with practitioners and add to the field by offering a robust moral and operational approach to shaping pedagogical principles for policymakers and educators working in resettlement communities.     

Understanding primary teachers’ professional learning and practice: an activity theory lens

In this study, the author reports on the professional learning of three primary teachers who engaged in three cycles of collaborative action research over a three-year period from 2013 to 2016. Case study was chosen as a methodology to gain insight into the context of the teachers’ work as they interacted with others and adopted multiple tools. Data collection and analysis were on-going over a three-year period, using several sources, including classroom observations, interviews, portraits and teacher-created multimedia artefacts. Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and its activity system unit of analysis (subject, object, tools, norms, community and division of labour) was used by the author to describe changes in the professional learning of the three teachers, the contradictions or tensions they addressed, and how they transformed the aspects of their professional knowledge and classroom practice.     

Becoming employable students and ‘ideal’ creative workers: exclusion and inequality in higher education work placements

In this paper we explore how the ‘employable’ student and ‘ideal’ future creative worker is prefigured, constructed and experienced through higher education work placements in the creative sector, based on a recent small-scale qualitative study. Drawing on interview data with students, staff and employers, we identify the discourses and practices through which students are produced and produce themselves as neoliberal subjects. We are particularly concerned with which students are excluded in this process. We show how normative evaluations of what makes a ‘successful’ and ‘employable’ student and ‘ideal’ creative worker are implicitly classed, raced and gendered. We argue that work placements operate as a key domain in which inequalities within both higher education and the graduate labour market are (re)produced and sustained. The paper offers some thoughts about how these inequalities might be addressed.     

Lifelong learning trajectories: some voices of those ‘in transit’

This paper illustrates the social determinants of lifelong learning histories as uncovered in a largescale survey and interview analysis carried out as part of the ESRC Learning Society Programme, and previously reported in this journal. The statistical ‘determinants’ of adult participation in learning as described there, such as family background or gender, are examined here in terms of individual stories as well as theoretical models derived from earlier phases of this project. The two forms of data and their analyses appear to accord, suggesting perhaps that concepts of structure (determinants) and agency (choice) are not mutually incompatible in explaining patterns of adult learning. Choices are anyway made within subjective opportunity structures (which include notions of what is ‘appropriate’ for each person).